The NEO-INDEPENDENT

February 4, 2013

On February 16, 2013--in less than two weeks--independents from across the nation will be gathering in New York City for a national conference. Many of us will meet each other for the first time; many of us will be seeing old friends. Delegates will hear a keynote address by Jackie Salit, who has been conducting national conference calls with hundreds of independents over the last two years about the work they have been doing--from petition drives and litigation for open primaries, to meeting in local associations and speaking to the media. We will be hearing from new activists as well as veterns of the independent political movement. We will speak to each other and to the nation about who we are, what we are doing, and where we are going.

Below is a newly-penned poem, "Onward," by my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Jessie Fields. The last line could not be more fitting for the occasion: "With ceaseless hearts on the ground transforming a nation we work anew and sing."

Omar H. Ali, Editor

Onward

Ancient land a people walked side ocean shores round

Blue ridged mountain plains forest thick.

Locked in Europe’s sight, the screams of eras chains unbroken.

Nameless unknown outsiders widen the fiery lines of history as farmers led barefoot frozen

Slaves gave body and breath to insurrection, ancestors all, their blood in the soil.

Soul of a nation millions made full measures of devotion, the old songs of freedom sung the long hope of humankind.

With ceaseless hearts on the ground transforming a nation we work anew and sing.

-- Jessie Fields

Dr. Jessie A. Fields is a Harlem-based physician, poet, and longtime independent political leader in New York City.

August 24, 2012

January 14, 2012

Gallup reports that 40 percent of Americans self-identify as independent--a "record-high" (see report). We are here to stay, and apparently grow, yet we remain marginalized and largely misunderstood. We also continue to press for changes in our political system that will open up the process to include independents in the first and critical round of voting: the primaries.

The following issue of The Neo offers a book review of Linda Killian's The Swing Vote: The Power of Independents, an interview with Kentucky State Representative Jimmy Higdon by Phyllis Goldberg regarding the fight for open primaries, and recent political analysis by Harry Kresky (see "America's Two Political Reform Movements," The Huffington Post).

-- O.H.A, Editor

BOOK REVIEW

by Omar H. Ali

The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents byLinda Killian. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2012. 320 pages.

“A great many people are struggling with how to fix our broken system. There are a lot of good ideas out there, including demanding more civility from our officials and the media; reducing the power of money in politics and the influence of lobbyists and special interests; increasing the number of competitive congressional and state legislative districts … and opening up the primary process in all fifty states to Independent voters. But unless Independent voters push for these reforms, they are unlikely to happen. The political parties, caught in a never-ending loop of finger pointing … don’t seem willing or able to change things.”

Linda Killian, The Swing Vote, p. 67

With historic levels of public disapproval with Congress and a steady rise in the number of independents in the nation, more people are asking who are America’s independents? Linda Killian seeks to answer this question in her new book The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents.

Killian, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a columnist for U.S. News and World Report, is an astute journalist writing about a challenging and largely under-explored subject. The Neo-Independent welcomes this book as an important contribution to a more in-depth discussion about America’s independents—who they are, what they want, and what they are doing.

Although forty percent of Americans—a plurality of voters—self-identify as independent, such voters remain largely misunderstood by political analysts. Killian takes her shot to better understand who independents are and offers a series of prescriptions for the hyper partisanship crippling the nation.

Focusing on four battleground states—Ohio, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Virginia—Killian interviews a range of independents, who she characterizes as everything from “Starbucks Moms and Dads” to “the Facebook Generation.” While updating the old “Soccer Moms” category, among others, the story of who independents are is more complex than can be summed up in such catchy ways. One thing that comes through among the different people she interviews is their shared desire for less partisanship in all aspects of our political system. Interviewing rank and file independents and elected officials, Killian quotes one New Hampshire state representative, Cynthia Dokmo, who captures the widespread anti-partisan sentiment. As Dokmo puts it, public officials “[simply place] party loyalty before what’s best for the people.”

Through her interviews Killian tells the story of a country on the wrong track, held hostage by two powerful parties, and the growing response among voters by leaving the Democratic and Republican parties to become independent. She accurately accounts for independents’ role in determining the last two major elections, notes how closed primaries limit independent participation, and describes the need for a host of political reforms (including open primaries, nonpartisan redistricting, and ending the filibuster).

Killian, however, insists on describing independents as essentially “centrist” or “moderates.” In doing so she relies on an ideological framework in trying to understand independent voters—one which erroneously presupposes (indeed imposes) ideological homogeneity among independents. Independents, in fact, span the ideological spectrum; their common interest is not ideological but—as one after another person interviewed in Killian’s book makes plain—a more open/less partisan political process.

As Julia Pfaff, an independent from Virginia, states, “I’m part of a huge group of Americans who feel disenfranchised.We don’t like where we’re headed.It’s like we’re riding on a bus, and the two parties are the drivers who are arguing over who gets to control the steering wheel.Meanwhile there’s a cliff and we’re headed straight for it.” Rather than focus on Pfaff’s statement about the failure of the political process, Killian interprets Pfaff as making a call for moderation. Perhaps unintentionally, by offering the words of so many independents throughout her book, Killian allows for a compelling picture of independents to emerge—Americans leading the way in calling for a restructuring of the political system—despite the author’s insistence that what independents share in common is their “moderation.”

While Killian is limited in her framing of who independents are (or, more precisely, are becoming), she does a fine job of describing the palpable discontent in the nation with the major parties. She offers a series of prescriptions culled from various organizations and people—from Americans Elect to IndependentVoting.org—focusing on structural reforms while encouraging greater citizen activism. Her ideas clearly come out of the many conversations she had with those she interviewed, including my colleagues Jackie Salit, president of IndependentVoting.org, and attorney Harry Kresky, a pioneer in the development of legal strategies to challenge partisan control of the political process.

Killian ends her book by imploring her readers to take action: “If you agree with the mission and methods of No Labels, the Coffee Party, IndependentVoting.org, or another group pushing for change, join them. Or start your own group.” Notwithstanding Killian’s limited framing of independents as “swing voters” (moderates in the ideological center of the two major parties) her study adds to the national dialogue about our “broken system,” pointing to both the critical need for key structural reforms and the emergence of a process-oriented independent political movement in the United States to help lead that call.

Omar H. Ali is Editor of The Neo-Independent and a historian at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His book In the Balance of Powerwas named a “landmark work” by The National Political Science Review.

The Fight for Open Primaries in Kentucky

Phyllis Goldberg, The Neo, Contributing Editor

In 2009, then state representative Jimmy Higdon introduced a bill to open Kentucky’s primaries to independent voters. Rep. Higdon was responding to a request to sponsor such a bill by one of his constituents – and the Marion County Republican Party chair – Jodi George. Firmly committed to the inclusion of independents in the political process, George testified on behalf of the Higdon legislation in Committee hearings that year, as did Michael Lewis and other leaders of the fledgling Independent Kentucky, which organizes and advocates on behalf of the state’s 200,000+ independent voters.

Higdon, elected to the State Senate in a special election later in 2009, introduced open primaries legislation in 2010 and again in 2011. In the last go-round the bill passed in the Senate but never reached the House floor, missing the cut in the House Elections and Constitutional Amendments and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee by just one vote. (Not coincidentally, three members of the Committee were no-shows when the vote was taken.)

Rep. Owens, who is credited by Senator Higdon for giving his open primaries legislation a Committee hearing each time it was introduced (the Committee kept it from going to the House floor all three times) is a Democrat. Higdon is a Republican.

The Neo recently interviewed Senator Higdon to get his assessment of where the fight for open primaries in the Bluegrass State goes from here. We later spoke to Jodi George as well.

NEO: Nationally, independent voters are in the spotlight again, given the role they’re expected to play in electing our next president.Do you think this helps, or hurts, the case for open primaries in Kentucky?

SENATOR HIGDON: It helps. A lot of people would like to see open primaries happen, but there’s resistance on the part of the status quo – the Republican and Democratic parties. They’re just not open…they haven’t bought into the idea yet. Partly it’s because open primaries are an unknown. Partly it’s because of issues with open primaries in other states, like New Hampshire, where people can change their registration on the day they come to vote. Our bill isn’t anything like that.

But we’ve brought them a long way in the last couple of years. Jodie George and Mike Lewis, the chairman of Independent Kentucky, are very passionate about open primaries. But we haven’t seen that kind of passion more broadly.

NEO: Independent Kentucky has now collected several thousand signatures on open primary petitions. So you seem to have some wind at your back.

SENATOR HIGDON: Yes. A lot of people are talking about it. It’s gathered a lot of support. But we haven’t had the type of support to push it across the finish line. Without people lobbying their legislators, it’s not going to go anywhere. We need to get some of those legislators to change their minds.

NEO: Who do you see as potential allies in the effort?

SENATOR HIGDON:I’ve mentioned Jodie George and Mike Lewis – and there’s my son, Jim Higdon, who’s a writer, and a strong supporter of open primaries. And I have to commend Rep. Darryl Owens, the chairman of the House Committee on Elections, Constitutional Amendments and Intergovernmental Affairs. He’s heard that bill for me three times in a row! It’s done very well in the state senate…there’s a lot of support there for open primaries.

NEO: Are you planning to introduce the open primaries bill in this session?

SENATOR HIGDON: My legislative docket is full. I’m trying to contact Senator Bob Leeper [an independent] about sponsoring. And we’re thinking about starting in the House this time.

NEO: Here’s the $64,000 question: What will it take to enact open primaries legislation in Kentucky?

SENATOR HIGDON: A coordinated grassroots movement with a lot of people contacting their representatives and asking them to support it.

Comments by Jodi George

We’re entering the fourth year of this idea…I’m confident that it’s going to pass this time. We need that option [of open primaries] in this state. Independents are paying for these elections…they have a right to vote in them. They’re a growing population that needs to be represented.

In 2010 we were only two votes short of getting it onto the House floor…We came that close. The idea that there isn’t enough passion for open primaries is untrue. If people weren’t there, we wouldn’t have accomplished what we did. I think it’s more accurate to say that there’s a bigger passion on the part of those who are against it. The pressure is out there. More pressure is needed, like people contacting their legislators.

Senator Higdon has said he would introduce an open primaries bill again in this session. Michael Lewis and I have got to rally from a different direction now, getting others to co-sign this bill. Michael has done an amazing job.

July 18, 2011

On July 3rd, 2011, the postmodern philosopher and longtime independent political strategist Dr. Fred Newman passed away. He was 76 years old (see New York Times obituary). A founder and contributing editor to The Neo, Fred was a social visionary, political innovator, and mass organizer who will be deeply missed by those who knew him. I am honored to have worked with him over the past two decades. He was a wonderful teacher, a gentle soul, a brilliant working-class leader, and a passionate proponent of people's development.

This summer installment of The Neo begins with an excerpt from Newman's book (co-authored with Lois Holzman), The End of Knowing. In "Deliberately Unsystematic Thoughts on a New Way of Running a Country," Newman engages the history of liberty in the United States, poses a challenge to identity politics, and offers a different, developmental way forward. Newman's challenge to epistemology (how we know, or the ways in which knowledge is constructed) goes back to his earliest publication--his 1962 doctoral dissertation from Stanford University. Published as Explanation by Description: An Essay on Historical Methodology (The Hague: Mouton, 1968), Newman challenges causality in historical explanation. For Newman, life and history are much more complex, and can not be so easily reduced. People create environments, even as people are shaped by their environments. History is that fascinating dialectical process. Newman's excerpt gives a flavor for some of his insights and ways of understanding history.

Also included in this installment are three articles well-worth reading that look at today's emerging independent movement: Mickey Edward's "How to turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans" from The Atlantic, Jacqueline Salit's "How Obama Can Be a Non-Partisan President" from The Huffington Post, and an analysis of the Pew Research Center's recent study Beyond Red vs. Blue by Sarah Lyons, entitled "Independents are Not Moderates."

Finally, The Neo offers a few statistics regarding independents as we head into the 2012 elections. My thanks to Sarah Lyons, The Hankster, Phyllis Goldberg, and Jacqueline Salit for these.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LIBERTY
The method of liberal compromise and the search for the programmatic center which typified the first hundred or so years of American political life have gone through a profound change as well in this past half century, even though the rhetoric of the left-center-right paradigm is still officially and opportunistically retained. In fact, the meaning of liberty itself has been transformed. At the very beginning of the American republic (confederation), liberty was identified primarily with the dominance of local (grassroots) institutions in which Americans participated directly, and with political and economic power that was correspondingly dispersed. The Constitution of 1787 laid the foundation for a major consolidation of political power in a centralized federal government; the Bill of Rights was regarded by its supporters as a necessary check on this new power.

However, for a long time the Bill of Rights had surprisingly little practical impact on American liberty. (It was not until after World War I that the Supreme Court declared a law unconstitutional for infringing on the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.) For the first century of the Republic, political discourse about liberty did not focus on individual rights so much as on how government could best nurture "republican virtue" and support the development of a nation of self-governing citizens. The fight for liberty during this largely free market period was played out primarily in the political (as opposed to the judicial) arena, in an ongoing effort to give republican shape to the growth and consolidation of economic power.

It is only in the twentieth century (especially since the end of World War II, which brought an intensification of regulatory capitalism) that American liberty has come to mean a primary emphasis on the rights of individuals as defined in the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments to the Constitution. In this evolution, judicial review by the federal courts and the Supreme Court (and, therefore, lawyering) has come to play an increasingly prominent role in defining American liberty in terms of constraints on the power of government (the regulators) and of political majorities in a bipartisan regulatory arrangement to impose their particular views on individuals and constituencies.

From the contemporary liberal perspective, this evolution of the "neutral state" promised to open up a whole new era in which individual citizens would experience unprecedented freedom to define themselves, their purposes and commitments, and their own associations, and to reject obligations they had not themselves chosen. From this point of view, the evolution of American liberty seemed to be fulfilling the promise of the American Revolution. Yet the changing character of liberty was essentially a reaction formation to the takeover by the professional political caste of regulatory capitalism. Ultimately, there was no room for compromise.

In practice, many Americans felt a growing ambivalence (at least) about the quality of life brought about by the new freedom. The transformed paradigm of liberty, emphasizing the primacy of individual rights, superseded the older republican paradigm in which liberty was understood not primarily as legal constraints on government, but as the participation of citizens in a self governing nation. But who was "taking care" of the country now?

During the first 100 years of the American republic, there existed a developmental creative tension between the growth of the economy and the growth of liberty. The ongoing effort to give republican shape to the titanic economic power that was evolving ensured (or, at least, gave cause for hope) that economic growth would benefit not a privileged few, but the entire nation (albeit in varying degrees). Conversely, confidence in American liberty enlisted the enthusiastic participation of millions of people from all over the world in America's economic growth.

The new paradigm of individuated liberty, however, reflected the dissolution of this creative tension, and the consolidation of economic and political power (otherwise known as the rise of "special interests") to the exclusion of the republican majority. The proliferation of individual rights and the accompanying "identity politics," despite the many things that can be invoked to justify them, came about in part as an alternative to the creative tension between liberty and economic growth. Individual liberty appeared wonderful to many, but the environment in which it was to be practiced came to seem increasingly regulated. There was, once again, no apparent synthesis possible (no compromise, no center ground) between the political/corporate takeover of highly regulated American capitalism and the endless varieties of demands (in most cases legitimate) for rights, liberty, and a greater share of the economic pie on the part of conflicting identity based groups. They have always been on a collision course. Now, as the twenty-first century nears, they have collided. Most importantly, the developmental tension between old-style republican liberty and economic expansion (arguably, the bedrock of Americanism) has been destroyed. The political-economic center has collapsed. Although there is much profit, there is no real growth. There is structural antagonism, an irreconcilable contradiction, no room for compromise. The center fails to hold ...

Mickey Edwards was a member of Congress for sixteen years and a chairman of the House Republican leadership's policy committee. After leaving Congress, he taught at Harvard, where he was voted the Kennedy School's outstanding teacher. He currently runs a political leadership program at the Aspen Institute. He was one of three founding trustees of the Heritage Foundation. He served on the American Bar Association task force that condemned President George W. Bush, and his most recent book, Reclaiming Conservatism, was published in 2008.

... Ours is a system focused not on collective problem-solving but on a struggle for power between two private organizations. Party activists control access to the ballot through closed party primaries and conventions; partisan leaders design congressional districts. Once elected to Congress, our representatives are divided into warring camps. Partisans decide what bills to take up, what witnesses to hear, what amendments to allow.

Many Americans assume that’s just how democracy works, that this is how it’s always been, that it’s the system the Founders created. But what we have today is a far cry from what the Founders intended. George Washington and James Madison both warned of the dangers posed by political parties. Defenders of the party system argue that parties—including Madison’s own—arose almost immediately after the nation was founded. But those were not parties in the modern sense: they were factions uniting on a few major issues, not marching in lockstep on every issue, large and small. And while some defend the party system as a necessary provider of cues to voters who otherwise might not know how to vote, the Internet and mass media now make it possible for voters to educate themselves about candidates for office.

What we have today is not a legacy of 1789 but an outdated relic of the late 1800s and early 1900s, when Progressives pushed for the adoption of primary elections. By 1916, all but a handful of states had instituted the “direct primary” system, under which a party candidate was selected by a public vote, rather than by party leaders in backroom deals. But the primaries, and the nominating conventions, were open only to party members. This reform was supposed to give citizens a bigger role in the election process. Instead, the influence of party leaders has been supplanted by that of a subset of party activists who are often highly ideological and largely uninterested in finding common ground. In Delaware in 2010, a mere 30,000 of that state’s nearly 1 million people kept Mike Castle, a popular congressman and former governor, off the general-election ballot. In Utah, 3,500 people meeting in a closed convention deprived the rest of the state’s 3 million residents of an opportunity to consider reelecting their longtime senator Robert Bennett. For most of the voters who go to the polls in November, the names on the ballot have been reduced to only those candidates the political parties will allow them to choose between. Americans demand a multiplicity of options in almost every other aspect of our lives. And yet we allow small bands of activists to limit our choices of people to represent us in making the nation’s laws.

I am not calling for a magical political “center”: many of the most important steps forward in our history have not come from the center at all, including women’s suffrage and the civil-rights movement, and even our founding rebellion against the British crown. Nor am I pleading for consensus: consensus is not possible in a diverse nation of 300 million people (compromise is the essential ingredient in legislative decision-making). And I’m not pushing for harmony: democracy depends on vigorous debate among competing views. The problem is not division but partisanship—advantage-seeking by private clubs whose central goal is to win political power. There are different ways to conduct elections and manage our government—and strengthen the democratic process. Here are some suggestions designed to turn our political system on its head, so that people, not parties, control our government ...

Jacqueline Salit is a twenty-year veteran of the independent movement. She is president of IndependentVoting.org and launched The Neo-Independent magazine in the Spring of 2004. A prominent leader in the fight for open primaries, she conducts regular national conference calls with over 150 grassroots independent leaders from around the country. An independent political strategist and journalist, she has appeared as a commentator on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.

Power politics has a way of erasing the memory of how things happened in the first place. That's because when institutions come to power, they want the stories about themselves to reinforce their institutional strength. They never like to credit outsider, non-institutional forces, even if the outsiders role in a set of events was pivotal ...

For many independents, it's not enough for Obama to simply criticize Congressional leaders for their partisan intransigence. He has to show that he's willing to back certain structural changes in the political process that make such intransigence more difficult. This means taking a stand in support of open primaries where independents can vote, which are currently under fire from right wing Republicans. And, imagine the shock waves that would follow an Obama appointment (in consultation with leaders of the independent movement) of two independents to vacant seats on the Federal Election Commission.

Moves like these would show independents that the President understands the history of recent electoral unrest and that he is ready to stand up for changes in the process that promote inclusion over party control and partisanship. Over the long term, that's what independents are looking for.

Sarah Lyons is the Director of Communications for IndependentVoting.org, a national association of independents with organization in 40 states. She has produced numerous videos on independent voter concerns including, "Facing America's Independents," "How the Independent Movement Went Left by Going Right," and most recently "Can Independents Reform America?" featuring highlights of the 2011 National Conference of Independents.

Pew acknowledged ... “In recent years, the public has become increasingly averse to partisan labels There has been a sharp rise in the percentage of independents-from 30% in 2005 to 37% currently.”

The survey also encouragingly pointed out that-contrary to much theorizing that independents comprise “the center” of American political life-they remain a diverse lot with strong opinions. “The growing rejection of partisan identification does not imply a trend toward political moderation, however. In fact, the number of people describing their political ideology as moderate has, if anything, been dropping,” wrote Pew, acknowledging that while independents have come to played a central role in the last three national elections-this does not a “center” make.

Pew’s findings amplify our own, discovered not through polling, but through the activity of organizing independents over the course of two decades. Independents are not in the middle between Democrats and Republicans. Rather, they want to move beyond the confines of parties altogether.

Perhaps more so than any other group of American voters, independents are attuned to the fact that partisanship is not a behavioral issue-it is a structural one. Since partisanship is produced by the structure of politics, addressing the issue of partisanship meaningfully means changing the political structure. That’s why reforms like open primaries and nonpartisan elections are so popular among independents.

All the numbers (see the links below) point to an increase in independent political self-identification (including both 'unaffiliated' and 'minor party' registration) and greater attention among pollsters to the category 'Independent.' Approximately 38% of voters self-identify as independent today--a number which has been steadily growing over the past quarter century. Independents are now a plurality of voters in the United States.

But what does it mean to have growing numbers? What does it mean to be an independent? After all, there are many kinds of independents (the latest Pew Research Center study classifies independents as "Libertarians," "Disaffecteds," and "Post-Moderns"). Some are conservative, others are liberal, still others are a mix of conservative and liberal, depending on the issue. But the one thing that unites independents is their concern over the kind of partisanship that is governing the nation. That's the one thing that independents across the board are similarly concerned about.

The numbers are growing, but the underlying message remains the same: independents want a more open/non-partisan political process.

March 27, 2011

What we tend to see as historic are the dramatic, the explosive (as the world bears witness to events unfolding accross North Africa and the Middle East). Historical transformations, however, take (and have taken) other forms--less perceptible in their intensity, with equally uncertain outcomes.

On February 12, 2011, 460 independents from over thirty states gathered in New York City for a national conference entitled “Can Independents Reform America?” Jackie Salit, president of IndependentVoting.org and a national independent political organizer and strategist, gave the keynote address--a detailed analysis of the independent movement over the past twenty years. The presentation was aired several times on C-SPAN.

The current issue of the The Neo-Independent features an edited version of Salit's analysis--food for thought for anyone interested in better understanding the emerging national independent political movement. Salit's edited presentation is followed by an interview with CNN contributor and political analyst John P. Avlon, a participant at the national conference of independents and a longtime advocate for non-partisan reform.

How fitting and fortunate that this conference on bringing political reform and non-partisan democracy to our country takes place as the people of Egypt are making a democracy revolution in theirs.

Let’s begin with a look at the American story: Independent voters are now 38% of the national electorate, a growing constituency of Americans who want an alternative to partisan politics and partisan government. In 2008, independents voted for Barack Obama in huge numbers – 19 million – because we wanted a post-partisan president: someone who could move us beyond politics-as-usual; an independent who could bring change to America.

The excitement and the national pride over Obama’s election was historic, but it was also short-lived. Obama found himself face to face with a devastating crisis. The American economy and the banking system – its lifeblood – were unraveling at an alarming rate. The auto industry stood on the brink of bankruptcy. And Wall Street took a plunge that was nearly fatal. How did the government respond? And what choices did Obama have?

The scenario presented by Wall Street was dire: The end of the world. Obama had to act. But, in acting to save the financial system, giving hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts to the banks, the president and his new government aroused deep conflicts and suspicions within the American public and created an opening for his political opposition.

The independent who had been elected to change the country’s priorities in favor of the American people, found himself taking extreme steps to save the country’s elite. As Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said, “It put the government of the United States in the position of helping the same institutions that were perceived to cause the crisis.”

Americans were confused and angry. Some of that anger surfaced as a media fascination called the “Tea Party movement.” It was part grassroots protest and part rebirth of the conservative wing of the GOP. The Tea Parties launched a series of anti-government protests only three months after Obama took office, arguing to politicians “you are spending money we don’t have, on social programs we don’t need, to solve problems that you have caused.”

The Republican establishment decided to ride the Tea Party momentum, with a two-part strategy. First, use the Tea Parties to energize the despondent Republican base. And second, channel their anti-establishment anger into a magnet for independent voters who had supported Obama, but who were upset about the path the president – and the partisan Congress – were taking.

Republican leaders understood that winning the 2010 midterms meant breaking up the Independent and Democrat coalition that swept Obama into office. They gambled that if Republicans said NO to everything, Democrats would move ahead without them, using their congressional majority to pass legislation when no bipartisan consensus could be reached. The most dramatic example of this was broadcast on national television, when House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi led the passage of health care reform with a straight party line vote.

This display of partisan muscle was unpopular with many independents. And Obama seemed either unable or unwilling to resist it. Republicans and their Tea Party allies were actively working to divide the Obama coalition. But the Democratic Party was remarkably passive. Maybe they believed independents would stand by them or stand down while they flexed their partisan muscle. More likely, they believed that the Democratic base was solid – it was up 5 points after 2008 – and independents, once so crucial, were no longer needed.

At IndependentVoting.org we were alarmed by this. Obama had been elected by independents to govern as an independent. But the most partisan Democrats were calling the shots. We’d seen the early warning signs of this eclipse when his team decided to fold their independent campaign organization – Obama for America – into the Democratic National Committee.

It was as if the Obama team had forgotten that independent voters fueled his primary challenge to the Democratic Party machine, carried him to the nomination, and enabled him to win the Presidency. In the 2008 campaign, 33 states allowed independents to vote in their primaries and caucuses. Most of IndependentVoting.org networks supported Obama in those contests. Without the backing of independent voters, Hillary Clinton would have been the Democratic Party nominee. But now, Obama had only Democratic strategists and congressional leaders talking in his ear. Maybe they wanted that history swept under the rug, but we didn’t.

We wanted that history told and understood, and so 111 leaders of our networks from 35 states wrote personal letters to the president urging that he reconnect with independent voters. One, by Ginni Treadwell of Vermont, was presented directly to the president as part of his morning briefing.

Dear President Obama,

I am a crabby old lady that has sunk so low in hope that I damn near stayed home from voting for the first time in almost 50 years.So much has changed in the last two short years since I joined thousands of independents to cast a vote for your message of hope and change.We did not expect miracles.We knew you needed time.

We were nervous when you kept on the “old guard” – many who have been more a part of the problem than the solution.We were shocked when Wall Street reform was a slap and did nothing to prevent the monstrous greed that has nearly taken this country down.When you had no interest in keeping the public option in the health care bill, we were just plain scared.But we calmed our nerves and watched and waited…only to be sooo disappointed when you gave so little attention to open primaries that offer a beginning to end the partisanship.

Ginni Treadwell, Troy, Vermont

Obama had lost his connection to independent voters and we tried to intervene to repair the damage. I wrote “Obama Can Win Independents Back,” published in dozens of papers across the country which spelled out what the president could do to keep his connection to independent voters, including learning the history of the independent movement; we appealed to the president on national television with Omar Ali, IndependentVoting.org spokesman, delivering the message of independents on CNN:

“If President Obama wants to do something about picking up his numbers, especially among independents, he’s got to find out more about what animates independents.The bottom line for independents is opening up the process and dealing with the bi-partisan and partisan nature of our electoral system.”

But the White House wasn’t listening. Then came the midterm elections. The Democrats lost 63 seats in the House and 4 in the Senate. After election night, the GOP controlled the House with a 49 seat margin.

It was, in some respects, ironic. The Tea Parties, which built their momentum in closed primary states where independents couldn’t vote to choose the Republican nominee – like Kentucky, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Florida, successfully divided the Obama coalition. How? By popularizing an anti-establishment message among independents.

Everything we’d said to Obama was on point. But, if we are to be honest, we have to acknowledge that in spite of what we said, we could not be heard. We were too small. We were too under-funded. We were too outside-the-box for the White House to hear us.

Nonetheless, independents were determined to make a statement. The core change that Obama had built his presidential campaign around, and that independents had supported, was eliminating partisanship. But on this, he did not deliver. So, independents gave control of Congress to the Republicans – making it impossible for Obama to govern as a partisan. It’s fair to say that independents liberated Obama from the partisanship of his own party. However, the swing by independents, while dramatic, wasn’t an endorsement of the Republican Party or of a conservative “Tea Party” vision. Gerry Seib of the Wall Street Journal wrote the day after the election: “The very fickleness that independents demonstrated in these two midterm elections means there's no guarantee they'll remain loyal to the GOP, any more than they stuck with President Obama and his Democrats.”

The latest polling numbers bear this out. Gallup shows 29% of Americans identify as Republicans, 31% as Democrats, and 38% as independents. Independents are not only the largest bloc of voters in America. They have been the change agent in American politics for the last 20 years.

Let’s briefly consider that history: In 1992, a major national independent political movement took shape in the presidential campaign of Ross Perot. In the spring of 1992, in a three-way race for the presidency, Perot stood at 40% in the polls. The country was poised to send an independent to the White House. But eight years later the Perot movement, and the Reform Party it gave rise to, were on the brink of non-existence.

In the early days of the Reform Party, our base in the black, Latino, gay and progressive communities – known as CUIP, the Committee for a Unified Independent Party – organized a coalition with Perot’s “radical white center.” This coalition for grassroots democracy became so powerful inside the Reform Party that in 1999 the ruling Perot clique was overthrown and a new national leadership team – backed by America’s leading black independent, Lenora Fulani and Jesse Ventura, Minnesota’s independent Governor – was elected.

But before the newly-elected Democracy Coalition could consolidate its position, the Perot group brought a well-oiled social conservative machine into the Reform Party, led by Republican Patrick Buchanan, to supply the ground troops needed to overthrow us. Perot’s inner circle wanted control of the movement back in their hands. But Buchanan and the conservatives wanted more. Having been rejected by their own (the battle for conservative control of the Republican Party did not start with the Tea Parties), they wanted to turn the Reform Party and the independent movement into leverage for a right-wing agenda. Two things prevented that from happening. After a brief effort at a coalition with Buchanan, the party’s progressive wing – that’s us – marginalized him.

CUIP Founder Jim Mangia, the National Secretary of the Reform Party, spoke out at the split nominating convention in Long Beach, California against the right-wing effort to take over the party in 2000:The Buchanan campaign is attempting to squash democracy in the Reform Party.They are coming here with brute force, attempting to take over the party, and we’re not going to allow that to happen.This is not the Republican Party.This is not some right wing social conservative organization.This is the Party of Reform.This is the party of 20 million Americans who broke with the Democrats and Republicans in order to have a choice.”

The defeat of the Buchanan juggernaut was completed by the millions of independents and others who had voted for the populist Perot but rejected Buchanan’s conservative alternative. Buchanan got less than half a million votes for president.

With the collapse of the Buchanan bid, which took the Reform Party down along with it, the independent movement was, for all intents and purposes, dead. But the deep mistrust of the political parties was not. Thirty-five percent of the country were still independents on the day the movement died. So we went out to rebuild – not as a party, but as a response to the third of the country that was disillusioned with traditional partisan politics, yet as a practical matter, had no way to express it.

We reached out, cold calling lists of registered independents, standing on street corners, going to county fairs and surfing the net, looking for independent voters who wanted change in a system that had become addicted to partisanship. That effort became known as IndependentVoting.org. And for a decade, we have been the only force in the country organizing independents to challenge the parties for the right to a nonpartisan political process.

Defining the independent movement – defining its principles – is a crucial part of building the movement. The battle inside the Reform Party defined our wing of the independent movement. It also set in motion a series of attacks and counterattacks that led to the Reform Party’s demise. Apparently, when push came to shove, no one in the establishment really wanted an independent movement for political reform, led by progressives, which crossed ideological and racial lines.

But if one episode of outside intervention to disrupt the independent movement isn’t enough to convince you of this, take a look at the New York Independence Party, where this same pattern was repeated, but with different results.The New York Independence Party was founded in 1994. It became a ballot status party off of the votes a billionaire, Tom Golisano, polled for governor. Our New York operation was a part of that campaign.

Not unlike the Reform Party, where Perot and his lieutenants wanted tight-fisted control from the top, Golisano and his team wanted complete dominance over the Independence Party. But, the rank and file had a different idea. We wanted a system of local control where power was disbursed to local chapters, rather than concentrated in the hands of a party boss.

And so in 1999 and 2000 we joined with other independents from around the state to vote out the Golisano forces and rewrite the party rules to install local control. We elected Frank MacKay chairman of the party. MacKay’s job was to guide the party to become an influential reform force in New York politics. But as the New York City branch of the party became that force, playing the pivotal role in electing Mike Bloomberg mayor in two consecutive elections, top New York State Democrats – and I mean top –began to object. The New York City Independence Party was developing strength in traditional Democratic constituencies. In Bloomberg’s second mayoral run, we persuaded 47% of black voters to go independent, joining with 60% of independents in a black and independent coalition. Hillary Clinton, then in the U.S. Senate, and Attorney General, soon-to-be-Governor, Eliot Spitzer instructed Frank MacKay to take control of the New York City branch of the Party. And the fight – complete with nasty, negative, personal attacks – was on.

Four years and 17 court battles later, the New York City Independence Party is alive and well.Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani (the targets of much of the attacks) are very much in the picture, along with the four thousand party members who serve on local governing committees. MacKay, who controls the Independence Party everywhere but New York City, is under a cloud of suspicion for financial misdealing. Meanwhile, the city party, which Clinton and Spitzer had tried to make radioactive, was approached by Mike Bloomberg to back his third run for mayor in 2009. When the Bloomberg team came calling to meet with Fred Newman and myself, they said “We can’t win it without you.” And Bloomberg, the independent, made that clear when he spoke at a rally two nights before the election to a packed room of 500 independents. Newman’s remarks that evening emphasized how Mike Bloomberg, unlike other politicians, had not abandoned independent voters:

“I’ve been involved in independent politics since the very beginning.One thing that’s happened on a national level in Minnesota, in Connecticut, all over the country, one thing that’s happened is that many, many people who think that this is just a bunch of swinging people who go back and forth, they say ‘well I can swing too, I’ll use them, and then I’ll abandon them.’That’s been the standard pattern, from Minnesota to Texas to California, all over the country.I’ll abandon them after I’ve gotten their votes of course!Then I’ll abandon them.Let me tell you the one person who hasn’t done that.That doesn’t mean we agree on everything.It doesn’t mean we always see it the same way.But I’m in a position to say, and I hope you will trust me on this; Mike Bloomberg has never abandoned independent politics.”

Bloomberg shook Newman’s hand and then walked to the podium.He said “Fred, I will never forget what you said.And I hope I’ll live up the standards you have annunciated.”

Two days later, the Independence Party polled 150,000 votes for Mike Bloomberg, 30 percent of his total vote and the highest independent vote in New York City in 70 years.

When independents are organized, they can act as a mighty force to move beyond partisanship and reform the system. But in most cases, independents are still struggling to make their statement. Politically speaking, the country is still split 50/50. But now – instead of reflecting that 50/50 split, as they had done since the collapse of the Perot movement, independents are swinging. They swing against the party in power because they want a kind of change that neither party has been able to deliver. They want a kind of change that supersedes any set of issues or ideology. They want a change in how the political process operates and how our government leads the nation.

The Tea Parties say that we have to take our country back. But that doesn’t really make sense, because we are the country. We don’t have to take it back. But we do need to take control of our democracy. This has been hijacked by the political parties. And it is the mission of IndependentVoting.org to take back our democracy and to revolutionize it into a creative self-governing activity that includes all Americans, with or without a party.

Today the independent voter is a coveted partner. And so the pressures and demands on different forces in the independent movement—on us!—are increasing.

We have carved out – to borrow a business term – an identifiable political brand. We are the progressive wing of the independent movement. We stand for radical structural political reform that enables the American people to regain control of the democratic process. Our issues are open primaries, nonpartisan elections, non-political redistricting, open debates, the right of independents to call themselves independents (not undeclareds, decline to states, or “other”) and that the rights of the people should take precedence over the privileges of the parties.

We believe that all people – regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or economic status – should have the necessary opportunities to grow and to prosper. We believe government has a role to play in that process, but to play that role it must become less partisan; it cannot remain captive to party interests. It must represent the national interest. It is not enough to demand bipartisanship in government. We must have non-partisanship in government.

The private sector, which is seeking new opportunities for growth, must line up with that nonpartisan direction. The business community must support civic partnerships that foster new forms of democratic participation and new approaches to development for all, including the poor. Here is our simple truth: the calcified and controlling party system is holding back progress. The president spoke in his State of the Union Address about innovation and infrastructure being the key to American strength. That must include innovating our political process and creating a new political infrastructure that can handle the demands of the new politics of the 21st century.

That is why we have worked hard to make structural reform of the political process a front burner issue.

We have played key roles in political reform battles over the last several years in California, Oregon, Washington State, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine. We have won major reform victories, as with the passage in California of Proposition 14, an open primary measure through an alliance between then Lt. Governor Abel Maldonado and our California affiliate, IndependentVoice.org. The measure allows 3.5 million independent voters into the first and critical round of voting.

We won big in California but we also suffered setbacks. Partisan opposition to democratic reform is strong. In 2010, Democrats in the Kentucky State Legislature defeated an open primary bill just as State Senator Julian Carroll told Independent Kentucky’s Michael Lewis, “What you are saying is I don’t like the way America runs its political system.Well if you don’t like it, move to another country!”

Kentucky wasn’t the only place where inflammatory rhetoric by major party officials was used to halt democratic reform. In New York City a coalition of Black and Latino Democratic elected officials, long opposed to reform, pulled together a last-minute rally to stop the growing momentum for non-partisan elections in 2010. At the rally, City Councilman William Perkins declared “Non-partisan elections, Anti-American!” In spite of this opposition, we had shaped a reform coalition which included the city’s premier good government group—the Citizen’s Union. But we still could not persuade Mayor Bloomberg and a charter commission to put that non-partisan question to the voters last year.

These ups and downs are the nature of the business we are in. We have found a sweet spot that is also a sore spot: Fighting for a nonpartisan election process. This activity attracts both allies and enemies. In California, all political parties, major and minor, opposed Proposition 14 and the third parties called us betrayers of the independent cause. But in South Carolina, the third parties – left and right – are with us in a federal court case to stop the Republican Party from closing the primaries there. But the coalition is even bigger and more unusual than that! Thirteen African-American Democratic Party legislators joined the lawsuit along with a local branch of the Tea Parties, which broke away from their own state Tea Party organization because it was taken over by the Republican Party.

In Kentucky, the Republicans supported us and the Democrats opposed us. In Idaho and South Dakota, it’s the reverse. Democrats backed our efforts. Republicans opposed. In New York City, the Democrats fought us tooth and nail and the Republicans were largely silent. As you can see, pushing for nonpartisan political reform creates shifting alliances. And new groups are adding their voices to the reform mix. Americans Elect, the recasting of UNITY 08, is putting together the infrastructure for a national campaign in 2012 that would partner a presidential and vice-presidential unity ticket from opposite sides of the aisle. Another group, No Labels, is an effort to promote bi-partisan cooperation.New York Times columnist David Brooks, at the organization’s official launch in December 2010, said:

“Some people think the problem is basically structural.We need to do some redistricting; we need to do a little campaign finance.I’m a journalist and I cover these people, to me, that’s not the main problem.They may be important but the structure is not the main problem…The main problem is good people stuck in bad social relationships… So what do we need?To my mind we probably don’t need a third party.I don’t think this is about a third party.We need a social movement under the parties.”

No Labels is highlighting some important concerns. But it is a mistake to think that bad relationships, as they suggest, can be overcome without changing the structures that shape them. The answer is not a third party.And a movement that is underneath the parties but not independent of them, won’t put a dent in partisanship. It will only produce a kinder, gentler form of partisanship.

So, we must ask ourselves, why has the battle for partisan control of the American government intensified over the past twenty years—that is, since the brief but dramatic rise and fall of the Reform Party? Is it because a certain fabric of American society that we relied on, as a nation, is unraveling? Is it because the center, the political center, which was anchored by a broad social compact, has fragmented, and political polarization combined with hardening partisan control from the top has come to take its place?

`12 years ago, just as the strength of the Reform Party was cresting, Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani discussed these issues on their weekly television show with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, the progressive economist who had recently served in the Clinton administration.In that remarkably relevant interview, Reich told Newman that the social compact had unraveled for multiple reasons, including the fact that “We no longer understand that we are in the same boat.”

We no longer understand that we are in the same boat. But what if the problem is even more acute than that? What if that boat, and the premises on which it was constructed, no longer float? What if the boat – the infrastructure of American politics – needs to be rebuilt based on a new set of premises that are neither the old New Deal nor the old anti-New Deal? These old political approaches and old battles are still embedded in the two parties and in the party system which protects and preserves them. How do we get beyond all that if we can’t release ourselves from their institutional control?

Our premise – the premise of our wing of the independent movement – is that the boat needs rebuilding if we are to safely navigate the waters of a post-modern world. That is why we bring democratic political reform to the forefront of our independent movement. New ways of thinking, new ways of governing, new ways of solving problems are needed. This is what independents want. This is what people all over the world want! When you turn on the TV to watch the news, you see democracy and development are intimately connected in today’s world. Are open primaries or nonpartisan elections the “be all” and “end all,” the absolute cure for what ails us? No. But are they a step that takes us outside the box of old power relationships that preserve the old order? Independents believe they are.

And so, with your permission, and hopefully, with your full support, let’s continue to build our democracy revolution.

On to a nonpartisan America!

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Interview with John P. Avlon

By Phyllis Goldberg

John P. Avlon, CNN contributor and author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijaking America, is among the most respected analysts of American politics in the United States. He previously served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor of The New York Sun. In addition to his work at CNN, Avlon is currently senior political columnist for The Daily Beast and recently co-founded the non-partisan political group No Labels.

Avlon has been a longtime advocate of non-partisan municipal elections. As chairman of the Charter Task Force established by Citizens Union – New York City’s preeminent good government organization – to make recommendations to the 2010 Charter Revision Commission, Avlon was instrumental in Citizen Union’s decision to support the reform measure that it had previously opposed.

An ardent independent who describes himself as “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” – others have called him a “radical centrist” – Avlon is one of the few journalists on the political scene who views the emerging independent movement not in terms of what it can do for the major parties but as a potent force with the capacity to transform how politics in America is done.

Several weeks ago he took part in a panel at the national conference “Can Independents Reform America?” organized by CUIP/IndependentVoting.org. At the conference he argued that the two major parties have effectively “rigged the system” in their own favor and pointed out that the political dialogue that takes place on most talk shows usually takes the form of a debate between Left and Right, as if independent voters and centrists do not exist.

Earlier this month he paused between meetings to answer some questions put to him by The Neo.

NEO:Were you born an independent? If not, how and when did you get to be one?

JA: One of the problems with our politics is that political affiliation tends to be handed down, as if it were genetic: you’re a Democrat or a Republican because that’s what your parents were. Politics has become like a religion – not just ideological but theological … it’s not filtered through reason. I’ve always had an independent streak.

What’s driving American politics is a new generation that’s grown up with lots of choices. Yet our politics is still operating on an analog model – the only choice is between A and B. But that doesn’t fit with how people think now, with how they live. The parties don’t want to leave the Industrial Age. They can’t reach out to independent voters because they don’t understand who independents are and what they’re demanding, which is about choice and individuation.

NEO:Now that No Labels has been launched, what role are you playing in taking it on the road?

JA: Before the launch we did a listening tour. We wanted to find out if what we were trying to organize resonated with people. Next week I’m going to the University of Iowa to continue the tour. Our purpose is to help folks in the center make their voices heard. The extremes have done a good job in making their voices heard. That’s not good for democracy, and it’s dispiriting. The Founding Fathers recognized this …Washington, of course, warned against parties, most famously in his Farewell Address. But most of them, including Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, were wary of parties. James Madison was very concerned about factions.

I always like to say that I’m proud to be a Yankees fan, but I love baseball more. Parties are not the purpose of our democracy. The parties seek to rig the rules in their own favor – as the Republican Party is doing now in South Carolina [where the Republican Party has brought a lawsuit against the state to close the primaries] – but that’s not in the interests of democracy.

NEO:In an interview in The Economist a few months ago, you noted that “Younger generations have grown up with a multiplicity of choice on every front, which can be tailored to suit their individual beliefs.” Would you say more about why you think young people are politically independent and why it’s significant that they are?

JA: Statistically speaking, independents are the largest sector of the electorate, and they’re also the youngest. That’s part of a conscious trend – a choice they’re making. Pollsters often act as if it isn’t. When someone says they’re independent, pollsters will say: What are you really? Independence makes sense in the Information Age. Young people now aren’t joiners in the way that earlier generations were. Historically, African Americans, for instance, were overwhelmingly Democrats. I think it’s a sign of health and historical perspective that young African Americans are becoming independent.

There are ten states where registered independents outnumber Republicans and Democrats – including New Hampshire and Iowa, where the earliest presidential primaries take place. And New Hampshire is an open primary state…that’s very important. The growth trends over the past decade in states like Arizona [from 17.8% in 2000 to 31.6% in 2011] and Florida [from 14% to 20%] is something no party can match.

Independents have been on the move over the last few years. Now they’re moving back to President Obama. The Republican Party has painted itself into a corner. The further to the right they move, the more they alienate independents.

NEO:At the CUIP conference you said that “The independent movement is one of the most exciting, dynamic things happening in American politics today.” In The Economist interview, you imagined a near-future scenario in which vast numbers of fiscally conservative, socially liberal independents would leave the major parties to form a third party at the center. But most independents aren’t party animals – they explicitly dislike parties – and they tend to reject labels – “conservative,” “liberal,”“centrist.” Do you see other ways that independents might organize themselves to give expression to their independence and to have an impact on public policy?

JA: That was a scenario, not a prediction! Social media gives independents a way to aggregate outside parties. The parties would kill for the growth rate that’s taking place among independents. But it isn’t going to happen, because they have no idea how to market themselves to independents. Politicians may use the word – like members of Congress who call themselves “independent” – but they’re not. The parties are polarized, but the American people are not. Even when it comes to issues like abortion, the American people aren’t polarized. That gap between the parties and the people creates distortions in our politics. Independents need to start showing up and pushing for election reforms like open primaries and redistricting reform to create a level playing field.

NEO:Where do you think the fight for open primaries in New York City goes from here? What’s your thinking about strategy and tactics for the next round?

JA: It’s been around twice and didn’t make it – once in 2003, when a referendum on nonpartisan elections was on the ballot, and again in 2010, when the Charter Revision Commission decided against a referendum. But I’m an optimist – like Lincoln, who said he was an optimist because he didn’t see what else there was to be. We have to be persistent and consistent on this fight.I think a referendum for nonpartisan elections needs to be on the ballot in a high turnout cycle, when the people who come out and vote are representative of the whole electorate. Nonpartisan elections isn’t a radical idea – 80% of our cities have them. In 2013, when the next mayor of New York City will be elected by just a handful of voters, it should be a wakeup call for people.

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About the Editor:

Omar H. Ali is a historian who has appeared on CNN, PBS, and NPR. A graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, he received his Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. Dr. Ali is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and the author of In the Balance of Power (2008), named a "landmark work" by The National Political Science Review. He and his family live in Greensboro, North Carolina.

About the Publisher:

Jacqueline Salit, a twenty-year veteran of the independent movement, is president of IndependentVoting.org. She launched The Neo-Independent in the Spring of 2004. A prominent leader in the fight for open primaries, she conducts regular national conference calls with over 150 grassroots independent leaders from around the country. An independent political strategist and journalist, she has appeared as a commentator on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. She produced the documentary "How the Independent Movement Went Left By Going Right" and is the author of Independents Rising: Outsider Movements, Third Parties, and the Struggle for a Post-Partisan America (2012) Salit lives in New York City.